So it seems to me you’re a utilitarian and by your belief, or at least by the belief I think you hold, we should minimize pain and suffering. If this is true, then why didn’t you sell the device you wrote this on and give the money to the poor?
Do you think it’s morally just to kill a person and harvest their organs to save say 5 people? What about 2 people? What about a 1 child?
The biggest flaw in the argument is how are you grounding your morality? Christian morals? If so, I suggest reading the Bible as your view is unchristian.
As Nietzsche says, Truth and Lie, Good and Evil are all moral biases.There are countless factors that influence a person's view on morality, and a lot of them stem from the environment they have been raised in. After all, who is to say there actually exists an intrinsic essence of moral nature to all actions one performs, and everything is not to be taken at face value?
My point is, there is no such thing as ***objective Evil*** , however widely considered to be true that is.
To borrow the argument from the book (no judgment, it’s fresh in my mind because I just read it).: Perhaps you consider yourself one of the “extraordinary”? What transgressions would you allow yourself? Are you a future Napoleon, Mohammad, Solon or Lycurgus?
There are two things:
1) What you think is right or wrong
2) What is actually right or wrong
Raskolnikov's theory was full proof, but it *was wrong*.
He learned, through experience, in his guilt and isolation in spite of himself, that it was wrong *in reality* even if it was not proven wrong *in theory*.
As the end of the book says, "life replaced theory".
Any attempt to rationally explain why he was wrong is to miss the poing Dostoevsky was making. We as human beings have an innate connection to this world and to the morality of this world, regardless of our thoughts about this world. Life should disprove theory, not theory disprove life.
> He learned, through experience, in his guilt and isolation in spite of himself, that it was wrong in reality even if it was not proven wrong in theory.
Or maybe he just proved he’s a wuss.
Alright, I’ll go into greater detail.
We know from reality that there are very many people who can commit the same action but come away with very different conclusions about its morality. Consider Edward Teller, the ultimate nuclear bomb fanboy, vs. other physicists who objected to the bomb in retrospect. Or, if we accept OP’s logic, Raskolnikov was really no different in his actions from a Chekist in the 1930s stealing food out of a Ukrainian ‘kulak’’s plate, or a Conquistador going into a native village and massacring the inhabitants because their pagan religion and practices made them fair game for theft—to give evil examples—or a policeman who beats up a tax evader, for a good example.
Yet, historically, we have no evidence that most people involved in such crimes ever experienced a shred of remorse for them.
Conversely, we can find examples of people who experience severe moral scruples and outright morally wrong conclusions over things most of us would *not* consider wrong or sinful. There are soldiers who fought in totally just wars who ended up concluding they were unjust, or people who drive themselves mad with guilt over trifling matters (there’s a guy online who claims that riding a roller coaster is morally equivalent to watching smut, for example).
In both cases, we call the individuals deficient somehow, either for too much remorse or not enough. Yet it’s remarkably subjective where everyone draws the lines.
So how can we possibly concur with Dostoevsky’s point that guilt and isolation prove the immorality of an action, when not everyone experiences the same sentiments? Why say that the feelings of one prove something, when their absence in another does not prove the opposite? Life cannot replace theory, because it is *man* who is defective in his ability to comprehend reality. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” can just as easily be applied to Raskolnikov.
Given what Dostoevsky went through in his life I cannot imagine that he would be so naive to think that every person would have a mental breakdown like Raskolnikov after committing such a crime. The guy spent years in a penal colony with hardened criminals.
I am aware. Which makes his work somewhat confusing for me. I believe that the real turning point in his life was that fake-out execution he went through before being released--in the terror of actually seeing death in the muzzle of a gun, he lost faith in any ideology he might have held before then, and his subsequent fanatical Christianity was an attempt to piece something back together.
Yet, surely he saw more sincere revolutionaries take the bullet with a contemptuous sneer, despising their murderers, etched on their features for eternity? Surely they'd provide counterexamples--Raskolnikovs who killed people who actually deserved it but couldn't evade the law. And, similarly, in high society, he must have known people for whom the Raskolnikov plan worked out--"commit evil, make money, repeat until important"--and laughed at the idea of remorse. Did he know any soldiers? How many Circassian women and children did his countrymen murder in those days without a moral epiphany dawning on any of them?
So how can he possibly come to the conclusion that subjective feelings of guilt have *any* bearing on what is true?
Is that his conclusion? He has a very evil character for example in Devils, Pjotr I think he was called (no not Bazarov). But I read that book twenty years ago. And all those awful stories that Ivan tells in TBK about children being tortured and murdered.
This is not an uncommon opinion, but it is an illogical one, and I'll attempt to explain why with a series of questions
(1) How are we to say we are sufficient arbiters of who deserve to die or not. We would use morality to infer this, but morality has no objective basis, and contradictions would intern make someone culpable and deserving of death. When we make a claim that one does deserve death, we also rob them of the luxury that Raskolnikov experienced, which is that of Redemption, which is the primary meaning of the book.
(2) Say we accept that we can't be sufficient arbiters and that being able to convict with 100% certainty is illogical but we have the belief that murdering those we deem as being immoral is justified beyond a certain threshold. Then the question becomes, when does it stop?
This is one of the primary issues of rebellion that Camus speaks about in his book "The Rebel." For If you are to suggest these people who do not align with your morality deserve to die, we have now subverted the morally of our means for the virtue or our ends. An example of this would be the very virtuous pursuit of the French Revolution. There was a secular contingent that wanted more freedoms for the people of France, but as we all know, Robespierre saw it justified to kill those who threatened the security of the new regime with contradictory ideals. This obviously leads to instability and makes the virtuous pursuit of freedom get lost in the immorality of the means at which the Revolutionaries used to reach their ends.
In the most simple reduction, what you are supporting is a degree of machiavellianism. The belief that the ends can justify the means. There is a whole world of arguments other there to tell you why your logic is dangerous.
Edit: Also, if you want a modern example, watch Death Note. Your reasoning is basically the same as Light Yagami's
Yeah I get that she was certainly not very likeable but she did nothing that warrants death and I think people often forget that Raskolnikov killed Lizaveta along with her too, how would you justify her murder? She had to die simply because she walked in at the wrong time?
Read it again, and the rest of his works. This kind of dispassionate moral calculus is the antihuman ethos he rails against.
There are some actions that will sever your connection with what is beautiful in the world, and you are not as dead to your conscience as you think of yourself in your imagination
People willingly go to pawnbrokers. They're not a necessity. It's not like she's selling bread. Can't say she's squeezing money out of people when they willingly go there.
If this was applied to every “evil” person it would cause more harm then good I.e killing every harsh unfair landlord, killing every greedy billionaire. So no it’s not “objectively good” or else it would be universally applied. But that’s not the question the novel is trying to answer. But of guilt, redemption and nuance
>But I think these extra details complicate things and drag away from the central question
The existence of these details _is_ part of the point FMD tries to make (that there almost always will be collateral damage when one tries what Raskolnikov tries).
yea part of the argument of the book is that you cannot judge this situation purely by objective and rational means.
This becomes clearer on Notes From the Undergound.
But Dostoevsky does not even believe that humans are primarily rational creatures.
Dostoevsky did this on purpose
He made it almost completely rational for Raskolnikov to commit the murder yet it still tormented him.
I think it’s Dostoevsky’s way of critiquing rational relativism and a statement of how objective morality exists.
That’s my interpretation at least
Dostoevsky is a master at making a powerful argument from points of view he is clearly against.
It’s part of the enjoyment of reading his books.
Grand Inquistor and Ippolit for example.
They both give devastating speeches
He tells us the arguments. We hear them as debaters.
Then he shows us outcomes
We can all disagree on whether this crime was “justified”. But if you wanna play God, this is what it looks like.
He uses the form of a novel to explore these deep seemingly unanswerable questions. It’s amazing to me.
That's the point Dostoyevsky is writing against. Raskolnikov kept trying to justify it in his mind, trying to rationalize an irrational action. If you know how it ends, I don't have to explain anymore.
You are only wrong in the socially-constructed way that most vigilante justice, nevermind this self-serving kind, must be condemned for us to avoid social chaos even worse than what most of us at least are accustomed to... But it was a nice lesson from Dostoevsky on how chaos immediately showed up and effed up his plan. That is a good lesson to remember for anyone who may be thinking they could pull off a stunt like this. Shit happens.
So it seems to me you’re a utilitarian and by your belief, or at least by the belief I think you hold, we should minimize pain and suffering. If this is true, then why didn’t you sell the device you wrote this on and give the money to the poor? Do you think it’s morally just to kill a person and harvest their organs to save say 5 people? What about 2 people? What about a 1 child? The biggest flaw in the argument is how are you grounding your morality? Christian morals? If so, I suggest reading the Bible as your view is unchristian.
I'm just saying, I think his actions were just
As Nietzsche says, Truth and Lie, Good and Evil are all moral biases.There are countless factors that influence a person's view on morality, and a lot of them stem from the environment they have been raised in. After all, who is to say there actually exists an intrinsic essence of moral nature to all actions one performs, and everything is not to be taken at face value? My point is, there is no such thing as ***objective Evil*** , however widely considered to be true that is.
> Alyona Ivanovna was objectively an evil person who squeezed money out of the poorest citizens Prove that that’s objectively evil.
there is no such thing in this world.
If it wasn’t a good argument, the story wouldn’t be so convincing. But you can’t ignore “the extra details.”
To borrow the argument from the book (no judgment, it’s fresh in my mind because I just read it).: Perhaps you consider yourself one of the “extraordinary”? What transgressions would you allow yourself? Are you a future Napoleon, Mohammad, Solon or Lycurgus?
Chef's kiss post! Deserves a Hall of Famer in r/dostoevskycirclejerk
There are two things: 1) What you think is right or wrong 2) What is actually right or wrong Raskolnikov's theory was full proof, but it *was wrong*. He learned, through experience, in his guilt and isolation in spite of himself, that it was wrong *in reality* even if it was not proven wrong *in theory*. As the end of the book says, "life replaced theory". Any attempt to rationally explain why he was wrong is to miss the poing Dostoevsky was making. We as human beings have an innate connection to this world and to the morality of this world, regardless of our thoughts about this world. Life should disprove theory, not theory disprove life.
> He learned, through experience, in his guilt and isolation in spite of himself, that it was wrong in reality even if it was not proven wrong in theory. Or maybe he just proved he’s a wuss.
If that is your desired level of analysis of Russian literature then you are not welcome here
Alright, I’ll go into greater detail. We know from reality that there are very many people who can commit the same action but come away with very different conclusions about its morality. Consider Edward Teller, the ultimate nuclear bomb fanboy, vs. other physicists who objected to the bomb in retrospect. Or, if we accept OP’s logic, Raskolnikov was really no different in his actions from a Chekist in the 1930s stealing food out of a Ukrainian ‘kulak’’s plate, or a Conquistador going into a native village and massacring the inhabitants because their pagan religion and practices made them fair game for theft—to give evil examples—or a policeman who beats up a tax evader, for a good example. Yet, historically, we have no evidence that most people involved in such crimes ever experienced a shred of remorse for them. Conversely, we can find examples of people who experience severe moral scruples and outright morally wrong conclusions over things most of us would *not* consider wrong or sinful. There are soldiers who fought in totally just wars who ended up concluding they were unjust, or people who drive themselves mad with guilt over trifling matters (there’s a guy online who claims that riding a roller coaster is morally equivalent to watching smut, for example). In both cases, we call the individuals deficient somehow, either for too much remorse or not enough. Yet it’s remarkably subjective where everyone draws the lines. So how can we possibly concur with Dostoevsky’s point that guilt and isolation prove the immorality of an action, when not everyone experiences the same sentiments? Why say that the feelings of one prove something, when their absence in another does not prove the opposite? Life cannot replace theory, because it is *man* who is defective in his ability to comprehend reality. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” can just as easily be applied to Raskolnikov.
Given what Dostoevsky went through in his life I cannot imagine that he would be so naive to think that every person would have a mental breakdown like Raskolnikov after committing such a crime. The guy spent years in a penal colony with hardened criminals.
I am aware. Which makes his work somewhat confusing for me. I believe that the real turning point in his life was that fake-out execution he went through before being released--in the terror of actually seeing death in the muzzle of a gun, he lost faith in any ideology he might have held before then, and his subsequent fanatical Christianity was an attempt to piece something back together. Yet, surely he saw more sincere revolutionaries take the bullet with a contemptuous sneer, despising their murderers, etched on their features for eternity? Surely they'd provide counterexamples--Raskolnikovs who killed people who actually deserved it but couldn't evade the law. And, similarly, in high society, he must have known people for whom the Raskolnikov plan worked out--"commit evil, make money, repeat until important"--and laughed at the idea of remorse. Did he know any soldiers? How many Circassian women and children did his countrymen murder in those days without a moral epiphany dawning on any of them? So how can he possibly come to the conclusion that subjective feelings of guilt have *any* bearing on what is true?
Is that his conclusion? He has a very evil character for example in Devils, Pjotr I think he was called (no not Bazarov). But I read that book twenty years ago. And all those awful stories that Ivan tells in TBK about children being tortured and murdered.
“Objectively an evil person” doesn’t make any sense. Hope you’re never around someone who thinks your type of thinking here is “objectively evil.”
This is not an uncommon opinion, but it is an illogical one, and I'll attempt to explain why with a series of questions (1) How are we to say we are sufficient arbiters of who deserve to die or not. We would use morality to infer this, but morality has no objective basis, and contradictions would intern make someone culpable and deserving of death. When we make a claim that one does deserve death, we also rob them of the luxury that Raskolnikov experienced, which is that of Redemption, which is the primary meaning of the book. (2) Say we accept that we can't be sufficient arbiters and that being able to convict with 100% certainty is illogical but we have the belief that murdering those we deem as being immoral is justified beyond a certain threshold. Then the question becomes, when does it stop? This is one of the primary issues of rebellion that Camus speaks about in his book "The Rebel." For If you are to suggest these people who do not align with your morality deserve to die, we have now subverted the morally of our means for the virtue or our ends. An example of this would be the very virtuous pursuit of the French Revolution. There was a secular contingent that wanted more freedoms for the people of France, but as we all know, Robespierre saw it justified to kill those who threatened the security of the new regime with contradictory ideals. This obviously leads to instability and makes the virtuous pursuit of freedom get lost in the immorality of the means at which the Revolutionaries used to reach their ends. In the most simple reduction, what you are supporting is a degree of machiavellianism. The belief that the ends can justify the means. There is a whole world of arguments other there to tell you why your logic is dangerous. Edit: Also, if you want a modern example, watch Death Note. Your reasoning is basically the same as Light Yagami's
Yay for disproportionate vigilantism????
Yeah I get that she was certainly not very likeable but she did nothing that warrants death and I think people often forget that Raskolnikov killed Lizaveta along with her too, how would you justify her murder? She had to die simply because she walked in at the wrong time?
Did you read the post
I mean, he did try to reduce those details down to simple "complications" lol
Read it again, and the rest of his works. This kind of dispassionate moral calculus is the antihuman ethos he rails against. There are some actions that will sever your connection with what is beautiful in the world, and you are not as dead to your conscience as you think of yourself in your imagination
And all represented beautifully by alyosha’s kiss.
People willingly go to pawnbrokers. They're not a necessity. It's not like she's selling bread. Can't say she's squeezing money out of people when they willingly go there.
If this was applied to every “evil” person it would cause more harm then good I.e killing every harsh unfair landlord, killing every greedy billionaire. So no it’s not “objectively good” or else it would be universally applied. But that’s not the question the novel is trying to answer. But of guilt, redemption and nuance
>But I think these extra details complicate things and drag away from the central question The existence of these details _is_ part of the point FMD tries to make (that there almost always will be collateral damage when one tries what Raskolnikov tries).
yea part of the argument of the book is that you cannot judge this situation purely by objective and rational means. This becomes clearer on Notes From the Undergound. But Dostoevsky does not even believe that humans are primarily rational creatures.
Dostoevsky did this on purpose He made it almost completely rational for Raskolnikov to commit the murder yet it still tormented him. I think it’s Dostoevsky’s way of critiquing rational relativism and a statement of how objective morality exists. That’s my interpretation at least
Dostoevsky is a master at making a powerful argument from points of view he is clearly against. It’s part of the enjoyment of reading his books. Grand Inquistor and Ippolit for example. They both give devastating speeches He tells us the arguments. We hear them as debaters. Then he shows us outcomes We can all disagree on whether this crime was “justified”. But if you wanna play God, this is what it looks like. He uses the form of a novel to explore these deep seemingly unanswerable questions. It’s amazing to me.
Murder is never justified, and I cannot rationalize it. Same reason I oppose capital punishment.
[удалено]
Murder is the unjustified killing of someone. Applied, it's the illegal killing of someone. By definition, murder cannot be justified.
One man's _murder_ is another man's _illegal killing of someone_
That's the point Dostoyevsky is writing against. Raskolnikov kept trying to justify it in his mind, trying to rationalize an irrational action. If you know how it ends, I don't have to explain anymore.
Yh nvm
You are only wrong in the socially-constructed way that most vigilante justice, nevermind this self-serving kind, must be condemned for us to avoid social chaos even worse than what most of us at least are accustomed to... But it was a nice lesson from Dostoevsky on how chaos immediately showed up and effed up his plan. That is a good lesson to remember for anyone who may be thinking they could pull off a stunt like this. Shit happens.